


for only gossamer my gown

by helsinkibaby



Category: NCIS
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Fluff, Het, Romance, post ep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 09:05:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15482385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: Ellie waits on a freezing DC street. She's just not sure what she's waiting for.





	for only gossamer my gown

**Author's Note:**

> Post ep for 15.10 "Double Down"
> 
> Theme : costumes  
> author's choice, author's choice, the dews drew quivering and chill, for only gossamer, my gown (Emily Dickinson)  
> https://comment-fic.livejournal.com/924751.html?thread=108426575#t108426575

Ellie can’t shake the feeling that something is off. 

It’s quite understandable, she thinks. After all, it’s Christmas Eve and she’s not where she planned to be. She should be in Oklahoma, sitting around the fire with her mom and her brothers, fighting over who has control of the remote control as the twin aromas of eggnog and turkey permeate the house. They should be negotiating who will drive to church in the morning, if they’ll visit Grandma’s grave before or after the service. She should be warm and safe and snug, surrounded by her family. 

Instead, she’s walking down a street in Washington, standing outside Tim’s apartment and for some reason, she can’t make herself go in. 

She knows she’s being ridiculous. It’s not like she’s gatecrashing a family Christmas. Tim invited her, Delilah called her too, just to ram the point home. She knows Abby is already upstairs - she’d shown Ellie the Goth Christmas sweaters she’d knitted the twins, and if Ellie had wondered if such a thing even existed and if they’d be cute, well, she should have known better than to underestimate Abby. Ducky is invited too, Jimmy and Breena had said they might stop by with Victoria too. It might not be her blood family, but it’s her found family and that’s just as good. 

It is. 

Yet for some reason, she’s standing outside, pulling her coat tighter around her against the December chill. 

And the hell of it is, she knows exactly why she’s being like this. Words she said to Tim earlier in the week run through her head - “The rest of the family’s not home yet.” 

Because that’s the whole crux of the matter for her - part of her family is still half a world away in Afghanistan, or at least on their way home from there. It’s affecting her more than it’s affecting Tim, and she doesn’t think it’s just because he has Delilah and the twins to go home to. Rather it’s because she’s been through this recently, been through it in the last six months. And while she’d never think of telling Tim that her experience of those couple of months was anything near to his and Gibbs’s experiences, she remembers all too clearly what it was like to know that they were stuck somewhere in Panama, likely being tortured, possibly even dead, to have that knowledge but not be able to do a thing about it. To run down leads, day after day and fight the fear that it might not be enough, that they might come home in a box if they came home at all. 

She had a lot of sleepless nights those couple of months and it wasn’t just from the responsibility of being team leader. 

She and Nick and Clay had been a team of three, working together, working well and she loves Clay, she does, loves him like a brother. But Nick had been the one to keep her sane, the one who talked her down from tizzy after tizzy in the wee small hours of the morning because he didn’t sleep too well either. He was the one who kept her drawers stocked with candy bars and snacks, the one who dragged her out of the office to make sure that she ate because sometimes she forgot to, and for a woman who loved food as much as she did, that scared the hell out of her. It had alarmed him too; she’d been able to tell by the way his eyes lingered on her as she’d eaten, how tension disappeared from his shoulders with every bite until, once her plate was clean, he was relaxed and smiling once more. 

Nick had been her rock and even after Gibbs and McGee came back, he’s still been her rock. A solid, constant, quite snarky and still a little self congratulatory rock who could break the tension in her shoulders with one comment, or even a glance. 

She’d missed that when he’d first gone to Afghanistan as Senator Phillips’s security detail. But when the group had been reported missing, when it had begun to seem like Panama all over again...

That had been when Ellie lost her appetite. 

She still hasn’t entirely got it back, even though she knows they’re all safe, that they’re on their way back home, should even make it in time for Christmas. 

And that’s why she’s standing out here, her hands freezing in a way that has nothing to do with the air temperature. But because she’s come to realise that Nick occupies a space in her family - in her heart - that’s larger than she knew and no matter how smart she is, she doesn’t know what to do with that. 

The cold air burns her lungs as she takes a deep breath and she’s giving herself an ultimatum, either go in or go home, when a wolf whistle, evidently aimed at her because the street is deserted, distracts her. She turns sharply on her heel all ready to give whoever it is a piece of her mind, maybe a flash of her self defence training too. 

Then she stops dead, because Nick is standing maybe twelve feet away from her and he’s got a look on his face that she’s never seen before. 

It’s a look that makes her breath catch, stops her heart before it starts it up again double time and all she can do is stare at him. 

She doesn’t feel bad because he’s staring at her the same way. 

She can see it in his eyes, the moment the spell breaks, the moment he shakes himself and smiles at her. “Bishop, you are a sight for sore eyes,” he says and the sound of his voice galvanises her into action, into movement. 

The next thing she knows, her body is pressed against his and her arms are around his neck. He makes a little “oof” of surprise but he hesitates for only a bare millisecond, wrapping his arms around her waist and holding her tight. She feels his head drop onto her shoulder, feels him release a long breath and she closes her eyes and just lets herself enjoy the moment. 

They each loosen their hold at the same time, stepping back but not too far. “When did you get back?” Her voice is breathless. She doesn’t care. 

“I just left Jack and Gibbs at his house with the Senator and his son,” he tells her. “I came right over... had to see what McGee has planned for the kids’ first Christmas, you know?” He glances up at the building, almost like he’s expecting to be able to see through the walls. Then something that looks like alarm flashes over his face and he meets her eyes. “Wait, are you leaving already?” 

“No.” His breath of unmistakable relief moves the strands of her hair and it hits her then that it was the thought of missing her, not McGee, not the twins and their first Christmas, that had him looking so panicked. 

“No,” she says again, stepping into him without really knowing why, only knowing that she has to. “I just got here.” 

He nods, never taking his eyes off hers. His left hand reaches out, closes around her right, and he lifts his right hand to her face, brushes an errant strand of hair back, tucking it behind her ear. He frowns as his fingers tighten on hers. “Just got here? B, you’re freezing.” 

A shiver runs down her spine that has nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with how his fingers are lingering on her cheek. “Maybe I’ve been waiting for a while,” she allows. 

It’s possible she’s not just talking about going inside. 

He lifts an eyebrow. “For me?” 

She doesn’t answer, not in words anyway. Her answer comes in the form of a smile made shy, a tilt of her head and a bite of her lips. It comes in the way she leans into him, pushing herself up on her toes, in the way her lips press against his. 

His answer comes in the way he uses their joined hands to pull her a little closer, the way his right hand moves from her cheek to the back of her head, threading through her hair and causing more shivers. In the way she can feel his lips curving up in a smile, in the way his tongue traces the contours of her lips as he deepens the kiss, in the little noise that comes from the back of his throat as she responds in kind. 

She feels a good bit warmer when they pull away, both grinning like idiots. Characteristically, Nick is the first to recover his speech. “That’s quite a welcome home, B.” His fingers return to her cheek, trace a path down to her chin and all she can do is smile. “C’mon.” His fingers are warm against her chilled skin. “Let’s get you inside and warmed up... if I know McGee, he’s got a banquet laid on up there...”

He doesn’t let go of her hand, steers her towards the door and Ellie finally finds her voice, and something else. 

“Great,” she says. “I’m starving.”


End file.
